


Sing of the Sea

by farfetched



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, MerMay, Pre-Relationship, fantasy haikyuu mini exchange, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 00:57:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farfetched/pseuds/farfetched
Summary: The singing starts one day. Kuroo, a merman shapeshifter, finds himself entranced with it - but this is no ordinary siren.After all, no siren would have such an mediocre voice.





	Sing of the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinkstarpirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkstarpirate/gifts).



His singing is mediocre. His songs are awful; like someone who has never heard any real songs, so he just keeps making them up. He's pretty creative, all told, but they're just so awful. 

Tetsurou can't help but listen. 

He sings of falling. He sings of water, and oceans. He sings of the sky, the clouds, the sun. He sings so much, Tetsurou wonders if he ever stops. Tetsurou returns several times a day, each as a different creature; he lurks in a dark corner as a squid, circles the rocks as a shark, flits about as a herring. Mostly, he gorges himself on algae as a catfish, his most comfortable skin, next to his merhuman skin he wears so infrequently. All the while, he listens. 

Tetsurou spends days, weeks even, just staying around there. Having initially travelled over to work out the sound’s origin, he remains bound by it. He can’t quite work the singing out, but he likes it, however awful. It is something new, and therefore direly needed. It seems benign – definitely far too awful to be a siren. No siren could be so tone-deaf, and he click-laughs at the mere thought of one existing with such an awful voice. But if not, what is he? 

His curiosity gradually builds. The man does not seem to sleep, only sing. He does not seem to have made any attempt to escape from the rock. Tetsurou longs to see what this being is, what he is there for, how he ever got to such a remote outcrop, why he stays. 

But he is shy. He hasn’t had any contact with land-dwellers before – such an odd creature could mean danger. He ponders it over the next week or so, taking a hundred different forms just for something else to think about. He spends two days as a limpet, thoughts dulled down to a bare minimum, when it starts to annoy him. The being sings the whole time, only minimal breaks. Tetsurou wonders to whom he sings. 

Then the singing stops. Eyes narrowing, he slinks his way up the rock, expecting it to restart any second; it fails to, and he hears nothing from the person on the rocks. He waits; minutes go past, hours. Finally, there is nothing for it. Shifting into his mer form, he pokes his head above the waves, and allows himself a moment for his eyes to adjust to seeing in air. 

There is indeed a man. His hair starts at black by his head, graduating to a sparkling white at the ends, shooting out of his head like an explosion. His skin, a dark brown, is mottled with sparkling salt crystals. He is laid upside down; he spots Tetsurou and stares with large black eyes that sing of the cosmos, a galaxy in each eye. He blinks, slowly, and smiles, crooked. 

Tetsurou dips back under, his face burning. He barely holds onto his form, and allows the ocean to cool his skin, taking a deep drag of water over his gills. Sensing movement in his barbels, he resurfaces only past his eyes; the man has sat up, and is still looking at him, face creased into concern. 

“Who are you?” The man asks, his voice husky.   
“Who are you?” Tetsurou repeats back, and gets a boisterous laugh in return.   
“I am Koutarou, of the Bokuto cluster!” He boasts, and Tetsurou blinks at him, puzzled.   
“What are you?” He asks.   
“A star guardian! I attached myself to a meteorite and fell off!” He explains, as though any of it makes sense. Perhaps it does; Tetsurou knows infinite things about the sea, but nothing of the world above, besides that which he can see. 

“Shouldn’t you get back to your… cluster?” He’s been here for weeks, after all. Koutarou, however, just throws his head back and laughs again.   
“Nah, I’m gathering my energy!”   
“By singing?” Tetsurou says, incredulously. It seems an odd method of recharging, as it were, but then Tetsurou also has limited knowledge of the world above. Perhaps all land dwellers sing to regain lost energies. 

Koutarou grins widely. Tetsurou feels his heart thump in his chest, and keeps his frown at a mere twitch of his lips. He’ll think about that one later.   
“No, I just like singing! It’s solar energy I use.” Koutarou explains. “Besides, I wanna see this world, before I go back.”   
“There’s a lot more to this world than that rock, you know. And I only know the world in the ocean.” Koutarou’s eyes widen immensely, and he leans forwards.   
“There’s more? You can show me, right?” 

Tetsurou takes a moment to imagine this being staying with him. It’s definitely not unappealing.   
“Well, I live underwater mostly. Can you breathe in water?” 

Koutarou grins again, and stands up. He’s imposing, taller than Tetsurou imagined, although probably still shorter than Tetsurou’s mer-form. Koutarou then springs from the rock easily, landing with a great splash. When he pops back up again, he looks even more elated than before.   
“I don’t need to breathe!” Koutarou reaches his hands out and grabs each of Tetsurou’s, sparking a furious blush to crawl unattractively up Tetsurou’s cheeks. He’s not used to such contact, only a young merman yet – as a shifter, he is ostracised by his society, and lives alone to avoid issue. Such easy acceptance is unknown to him. “You can show me, right?” Koutarou says, a little quieter, seeming bewildered, his eyes straying to his cheeks, perhaps wondering this new affliction Tetsurou has gained with the contact. 

His hands are warm. Tetsurou would like to hold onto them for a long time.   
“If you’d like. But I’m a shifter.” He blurts out, unable to stop himself. Koutarou blinks.   
“So? That’s cool! Can you go on land too? Could we explore there too?” Koutarou questions, drawing closer.   
“I’ve not tried…” he murmurs, looking away. But it’s not enough to avoid seeing Koutarou smile again.   
“I’ll help you!” Koutarou exclaims, and with his smile, Tetsurou feels a whole other world open up before him.   
“Okay. As long as there’s not too much awful singing.” 

Koutarou splutters, embarrassed, and proclaims that he’ll sing about Tetsurou. This, he thinks, could be fun. 

He’ll eagerly await that song, however awful. It’ll be for him, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Written for the fantasy Hq mini exchange, with the theme of mermaids/shipwrecked. Or, in this case, maybe starwrecked. 
> 
> It was hard keeping it to the word limit, but hopefully it made sense!


End file.
